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Uber just announced the ‘no-annual-fee’ Uber Visa Card, which is designed specifically with us riders in mind. According to Uber, they asked the customers about how and where they spend and what matters the most in a credit card. The result? A credit card with amazing benefits.
According to the official website, the Uber Visa Card will be available in the US from November 2, 2017.
With the new card, you can get rewards on your purchases. As per the details revealed, for the first 90 days, users will be getting $100 after spending $500 on purchases and earn 4% back on dining. Apart from this, 3% back on hotel and airfare, 2% back for online purchases and 1% back on all other purchases (seriously, anything).
With the card and its rewards, you can do things like having dinner with a friend in a fancy restaurant, taking an Uber to work (obviously), or even shop online. You can redeem your rewards for Uber credits, which you know how to use, don’t you?
What else is new?
The Uber Credit Card is more than just rewards. You get $50 for online subscription credit, a mobile phone protection when you pay your mobile phone bill with the Uber Visa card. With no foreign exchange fees and exclusive events and offers, Uber has definitely been venturing for good. At least, we can hope so.
Thinking of getting one? Super easy. From November 2, users will have the option to get the card from the Uber App itself. Also, you can look for the card online. Physical cards may take upto a week to reach via mail, but the virtual ones will be right there with you once you get it verified, within minutes.
In the era of virtual wallets and cashless/cardless economy, this might be one effort to bring the credit card business back. The targeted are actually the young and busy ones, who might help Uber achieve it.
Keeping in mind the lessons of the past, it is an accepted fact that credit cards are the most efficient way to gain customers loyalty and to lose too. The fact that Uber had privacy issues earlier and now they are getting into the credit card business is one thing to watch out for.
If we look at the bigger picture, Uber though bigger than Lyft, was struggling behind. This may help Uber to get back on track.
This is not actually Uber’s solo venture, it is in partnership with Barclays and Visa. Still, with so much data already available to companies like Amazon, there are some questions which still need to be answered.


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TORONTO, CANADA — Vega, North America’s leading plant-based protein powder has launched in the UK, as consumer demand continues to drive the growth of plant-focused protein products.
The Canadian brand enters the UK’s burgeoning plant-based nutrition sector off the back of strong sales in the US where it is recognised as a pioneer in the plant-based natural health and performance products category.
According to Vega’s UK Marketing Manager Jacqui Grimsey, Vega’s UK arrival has been “long-awaited by its already strong UK fan base.”
Confident that now is the right time for the brand to expand into the UK market, she argues that
with the rise in consumer interest surrounding health and wellness, and in particular the growth in demand for “real, whole food ingredients that support an active lifestyle,” Vega’s sales potential is palpable.
According to a recent report by Mintel, “in the UK consumers spent £66 million on sports nutrition food and drink products in 2015, up by 27% from 2013 when sales stood at £52 million.” And, with the plant-based protein market set to grow exponentially over the next ten years, current data echoes her sentiment.
When it comes to sports nutrition, “at the heart of this strong performance is that the appeal of these products is expanding beyond the small pool of the most elite sportspeople and gym fans,” explains Emma Clifford, Senior Food and Drink Analyst at Mintel.
“The category is increasingly attracting ‘lifestyle’ users who see these products fitting in with a healthy, active lifestyle. Fuelling the shift towards the mainstream use is the growing availability and visibility of accessible snacks and drinks from sports nutrition brands,” she adds.
Similarly, the escalating interest in the so-called “flexitarian” approach, in which more consumers are adopting a primarily vegetarian diet but occasionally eating meat or fish, is driving growth in the plant-based market.
But, with Mintel’s data also highlighting a 257% rise in vegan claims in global food and drink launches between September 2015 – August 2016, will the increase in competition thwart Vega’s move?
Leading brands including Protein World, PHD Women and My Protein and emerging startups such as Innermost and Neat Nutrition have already established themselves as popular providers of plant-based protein powders in the UK, with new entrants popping up at a rapid pace.
However, with Vega’s distinctive product offering and opportunities to extend its line, the brand is well positioned to take on its peers and “capitalize on the favorable plant-based eating trends and upside potential that exist in the fast-growing $8.6 billion nutritional powders, bars and ready-to-drink beverages market,” argues WhiteWave Foods. The plant-based food and beverage manufacturer acquired Vega back in 2015 and has a track record for spotting game-changing category creators.
For now, Vega’s three-strong range of plant-based protein powders can be found in Whole Foods Market and Planet Organic in London, but with plans for the range to be sold at Holland & Barrett throughout the UK, as well as via Amazon, the brand doesn’t plan on entering the UK market quietly.
Backed by a heavyweight integrated marketing campaign including PR and social media, digital, shopper marketing and sampling, Vega is confident it can capitalise on the UK market’s potential and attract new shoppers to the sector.

domain: news


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Thirteen years ago today, a person paid 10,000 bitcoins to buy two pizzas. The value of these bitcoins at today’s price is about 270 million dollars, equivalent to approximately 14 thousand billion tomans. Every year Bitcoin fans celebrate this day as “Bitcoin Pizza Day”.
On May 18, 2010 (May 28, 2009), Laszlo Hanyecz, one of the users of BitcoinTalk, the Internet forum of the Bitcoin community, announced by creating a topic that he was ready to buy two homemade pizzas for 10 000 bitcoins to pay.
He wrote in his post:
I pay 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas. You can say maybe two big pizzas that I can save for tomorrow. I like leftover pizza that I can eat slowly. You can make a pizza for me and bring it to me or order it to be delivered to my house, but my goal is to pay with Bitcoin. I don’t want to make it myself or order it. Kind of like a hotel where you ask for a breakfast table and they bring it to you and you enjoy it! I like to have onions, peppers, sauce, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni and such things on my pizza. Something standard and ordinary; Not that strange spices have been added to it. I also like regular cheese pizzas, which are not too difficult and expensive to make. If you are interested, let me know so we can make the deal. Thanks Laszlo.
paying 10,000 bitcoins for two large pizzas; A number that can be used today to open dozens of large and luxurious pizzeria branches. However, at the time, Laszlo was accused of trying to get a free pizza by scam, since 10,000 bitcoins were worth only $40 at the time. On the same day, one of the users wrote in response to Laszlo:
10,000…really few…you can sell these bitcoins at www.bitcoinmarket.com (the first bitcoin exchange) for $41…good luck getting mufti’s pizza.
When Laszlo published that post, each Bitcoin unit was worth about $0.004 (about 70 Tomans). Now, according to the data of the digital currency website, assuming a price of 27,000 dollars for Bitcoin, having ten thousand Bitcoins means a wealth of 270 million dollars; A dream that once cost only 40 dollars.
It took a few days for Laszlo to find someone willing to give two pizzas for something that has no roots or a very clear future. Finally, on May 22, 2010, Laszlo was able to buy two large pizzas by paying ten thousand bitcoins to a person nicknamed Jercos who lived in the same neighborhood. It was later revealed that Jersus’ real name was Jeremy Sturdivant.
Just a few months later in November 2010, the value of these bitcoins reached $2,600. In 2011, 10,000 bitcoins became worth about 18,000 dollars, and from time to time users of BitcoinTalk updated the price of these bitcoins; But even the most optimistic Bitcoin fans didn’t think that $41 Bitcoin would be worth more than $200 million a day.
After that, Laszlo paid bitcoins several times to buy pizza and other things, and he claimed to have donated about 100,000 bitcoins in this way, which are worth more than 2.5 billion dollars today. But this was not the end. In February 2018, Laszlo once again bought two pizzas with Lightning, this time to help expand the Bitcoin Lightning network.
Jeremy Sturdivant, the man who made a hidden fortune by giving away two pizzas, is probably regretting not waiting these days. In an interview with Cointelegraph, he said that a long time ago, when the value of these bitcoins reached several hundred dollars, he sold those 10,000 bitcoins.
Last year on this day, the Toman value of 10,000 Bitcoins was about 9,000 billion Tomans, and this year, this amount of Bitcoin (according to the increase in the dollar rate in the country) is worth 14,000 billion Tomans. What do you think 10,000 bitcoins will be worth next year?


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Nutritional supplement maker NeoCell Corp., will move its headquarters from Santa Ana to Irvine, after buying a 34,000-square-foot building at 17500 Gillette Ave.
The company used a U.S. Small Business Administration guaranteed real estate loan to buy the building for $4.06 million, the company said. Union Bank provided the loan.
NeoCell makes Super Collagen+C, Collagen+C Pomegranate Liquid and Resveratrol Antioxidant. The company claims that trans-resveratrol helps the body fight diabetes and heart disease, and that collagen and pomegranate improve skin, hair, nails, ligaments and muscles. The products are sold at Sprouts Markets, Whole Foods Markets and other retailers.
The new headquarters will house sales, marketing and product development teams, the company said.
- 7-year-old child, man dead in Garden Grove
- Huntington Beach air show takes to the skies and 200,000 may be watching
- Man critically hurt in Santa Ana shooting
- O.C. deputy accused of collecting workers' comp for injuries while doing CrossFit
- Friday night football: Photos of the spirited fans, bands and cheerleaders


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These are get-real times for traditional newspaper and magazine publishers. The winners will be those who recognise 5 basic truths:
- Paying content: The wake-up starts here. A new book by US journalism professor C.W.Anderson* gets to the heart of the “journalistic hubris” that prevents life-saving change across traditional media: an attitude that sees original reporting as the only true journalism, with no tolerance for curation, aggregation, or digital outlets like blogs and social media. It is too ironic, therefore, that seemingly pampered readers have seldom paid “enough” for newspapers and magazines – and they’re not going to start now. Advertisers have been delivering the profit, and they remain much more willing to pay for consumers than are those same consumers willing to pay for content. But advertisers are also paying less for more. Just watch (or join in) the quickening growth of free (or micro-priced) magazines, newspapers, digital media – and content generated by (and with) readers and marketers.
- Moving pictures: The bursting growth of video-streaming is creating some TV-scale media channels and will help non-broadcast operators compete for what have been watertight (and huge) TV budgets.
- Social networks: are the best (and lowest-cost) promotional channels for all media. And good content too.
- Digital first: There’s still money in print but publishers with ambition must turn themselves inside out to become platform-agnostic, delivering appetising digital content and functionality. Stand by for the mobile tsunami in content, ecommerce and interactive services. That’s the next big break-out opportunity for, and threat to, traditional media – and even to existing online operators.
- Audience insight: Newspaper and magazine brands must re-invent their traditional skills to captivate consumers and compete in an ocean of digital media and retail channels. It’s so much more than knowing what the audience wants to read.
Behind those five simple statements is the need for completely new business models with the inevitability of: reduced revenues from ‘flat’ advertising; increased costs through video, technology, and new skills; and lots of new-style, punchy competitors. That’s the price of digital competition, worlds away from cosy, neatly-separated media sectors.
However, the good news for traditional publishers is that hard copy can still thrive. The bad news is that only the strongest brands will make it – and then only with lower content costs and some vital new skills.
That is one lesson from Europe’s increasingly successful free newspapers and magazines. Many are highly profitable on revenue levels that are loss-making for their high-cost, paid-for rivals. That’s the legacy company problem.
Consider the magazine emperor Conde Nast (no slouch in the digital stakes), which finds itself squeezed in the weddings sector – by the XO Group, a $250m New York company launched in the dotcom 1990s. More than that, XO (formerly The Knot) is showing how printed magazines can be reinvented to drive the profitability of video-rich digital media.
TheKnot.com was launched in 1996, by four friends from New York University’s film school. Two of them, David Liu and Carley Roney claim the business sprang from their own wedding prep. Roney says: “When I got engaged in 1993, my now-husband (and business
partner) and I were excited like any other couple, but quickly realized the resources available at the time couldn’t help us. I was working 70 hours a week and no vendors were open when I finally could sit down and plan after 7 p.m. There were no etiquette tips for modern couples. I couldn’t find any ideas on how to plan a wedding for a little blonde girl marrying a 6 ft. tall Chinese guy – never mind finding a red wedding dress, since my future mother-in-law informed me that white was the Chinese colour of mourning! If that weren’t enough, we were also planning and paying for the wedding ourselves and couldn’t find any tips on how to even start.”
Liu and Roney somehow managed to get married (“a proper fun disaster”) and then set out to reinvent the way couples plan their weddings – and they took the market by storm.
TheKnot.com quickly became the country’s most popular (by far) online wedding site and is now flagship brand of a media business that profitably spans video streaming, ecommerce, national and regional magazines, custom publishing, books, broadcasting, events, and is all over social media. Today TheKnot.com and its ecommerce gift registry site WeddingChannel.com reach nearly 2m US brides annually. America’s leading wedding-planning resource has been joined by TheNest.com and TheBump.com for young couples and first-time parents, and now TheBlush.com on beauty, health and fashion. And Carley Roney is the company’s glamorous public face on chat shows all over the country.
Liu gushes enthusiasm for the life and times of his amazing company: “Media is now a platform of services. Prior to The Knot, and specifically prior to the internet, there really was no single destination where you could plan your entire wedding, find your caterers, photographers, musicians, browse locations, find out what the marriage license requirements are in your local area, register for gifts, book a honeymoon, find the wedding gown. All of these things were multiple, individual tasks that had to be done in very separate places. Our mission with The Knot was to create a single destination for a bride and groom who are really pressed for time, thereby make the planning process that much easier.”
XO Group floated in 1999 and survived the dotcom bust. It now has annual turnover of $130m, operating profit margins of 15% and 700 employees.Liu as CEO and Roney as Chief Content Officer have succeeded because they made their online service a fun, hip, user-generated, tech-strong resource in what had been a dusty, tired magazine sector. They describe XO as the country’s “leading media and technology company devoted to weddings, pregnancy and everything in between”.
Its annual Bridal Fashion Week is video-streamed across the US with huge audiences, advertising and sponsorship. In reality, the company envelopes its target audience in a way that is reminiscent of the very best B2B media groups which span information,
exhibitions, consultancy, and conferences. But XO is more significant than that. At a time when consumer publishers across the world are desperately trying to find ways of returning their magazine and newspaper franchises to long-term profit, here is an established digital-first business also making the most of hard copy. Liu says that, even when they launched TheKnot.com on the then so-powerful AOL, he and his film-mad colleagues were always planning to publish magazines as part of their wedding ‘network’.
He told Flashes & Flames: “I think there is something uniquely tactile and luxurious about looking through a magazine. It has the ability to please the consumer in ways that digital can’t. We realised very early on that magazines were an essential opportunity to extend the brands we were building. But we look at publishing through fresh eyes. Part of the problem of legacy publishers is that that they have bad practices that don’t make sense anymore. Like, here in the US, where they almost give the magazines away for very low subscription prices or with pricy gifts so they can guarantee a rate base and chase the advertising dollars. They have been making a terrible mistake in commoditising advertising and it has been bad for the published product. Instead, we are winning in the wedding market because the competition tries to sell them a ‘flat’ advertisement in a magazine and we are selling a wide range of services both to readers and marketers.”
Liu says his pioneering ecommerce operations, which contribute some 25% of total revenues, are highly profitable but also important to the company’s advertising sales story because “they show clients we are in the same boat and are results driven – which is a whole different story from the traditional way that magazine publishers hype the circulation and then try and get as many dollars as possible for advertising without worrying what impact the ads will have and what sales they generate.”
The XO boss believes his company’s genesis in the wild west world of movie production helped ensure its entrepreneurial flair and can-do approach to media. And now, he’s full of advice for the traditional publishers he has spent the last decade attacking:
- “Hard copy, done well still works when it is executed in a way that is exciting and valuable to the consumer. look at The Economist.”
- “Digital technologies have made the consumer king. Publishers still haven’t really grasped that technology wrings out the inefficiencies in the system and exposes poor service.”
- “Traditional media always had room for a No.1 and a No.2 product. Technology has a tendency to create monopolies. It’s winner takes all with a big gap between No.1 and No.2. So things are going to get tougher for many companies.”
- “Video-streaming will be transformative for the whole media industry. Live programming is the way to retain value. If you look at TV, everything else has deteriorated but live sports has remained strong and profitable.”
- “Consumers will, if anything, need more help in finding their way round the internet as consumer choice explodes. So there will be a premium placed on strong, trusted media brands, whether Vogue, the BBC, Cosmopolitan, Harpers or The Economist.”
David Liu warms to his theme: “The whole debate about pay walls is misplaced. What was a consumer paying for in the first place when you think about traditional media? Was it really “the media” they were buying? Or were they paying for companies to put it in a newspaper, load it on a truck and deliver it? People were largely paying for the manufacturing and “productizing” of the content. That’s no longer there anymore with online. The consumer isn’t going to give you fat margins anymore just because they want the content.”
But Liu knows that there are systemic challenges ahead for his business too. He sees the coming explosion of mobile as a hugely disruptive ‘third wave’ that will “make existing media look quaint, whether in digital or hard copy. Mobile will be the chance also for the best traditional media companies to get back in charge because the sheer interactivity and levels of functionality available (much of which we have not yet seen) will disrupt a lot of digital natives as well as the immigrants.
He adds: “That is where the big brands can capitalise on their reputations – but they will have to change the way they do business. For publishers, that means an end to regarding digital operations as something on the side of a magazine or newspaper and run by the IT department. You have to build a modern media business round the wants and needs of consumers, and use the technology and functionality to satisfy them creatively.”
Like the new-wave digital companies facing attack from yet-newer mobile operators, The Knot is busy swatting competitors from blogs, regional websites, and online scrapbook Pinterest. But Liu and Roney keep moving. Their newest whiz is the video-streamed “Dream Wedding” where viewers are voting Xfactor-like for a couple they want to see married, and then for all the details of the wedding. Last week, they announced that an LA couple had been selected to be married in New York on Valentine’s Day. Next week, voters will decide on the rings, bridal dresses, the cake and even the bride’s make-up and hairstyling. It’s gripping stuff for hundreds of thousands of people and is firing up The Knot’s ecommerce, advertising and sponsorship revenues.
It’s just the latest innovation from the company that is all over what is the world’s second biggest wedding market. But The Knot is also chasing the biggest with its fast-growing 2011 launch into China. And they have a newly licensed business in Australia. XO looks a bit like a 21st century version of the businesses in the US (American Baby) and UK and Australia (Bounty) which once developed imaginative, database ways to dominate the thinking, planning and buying by pregnant women as they moved through pregnancy and childbirth. And, whether or not XO manages to grow profits from childcare and first-homes as successfully as they have with weddings, this really does look like the way to develop platform-agnostic media in an era of channel convergence.
Why wouldn’t this ‘wrap-round media’ model work in fashion, health, food, sports, and almost everywhere else? And wouldn’t it work just as well within the vertical sections of mass market newspapers and magazines as in specialist, magazine-centric media?
Liu says: “We’re really building the blueprint for a media company of the 21st century.”
That ‘platform-agnostic’ blueprint means having strong teams continually developing research and insights into audience behaviour, and smart technologists to devise solutions. As Liu says, it’s the opposite of a magazine or newspaper editor coming up with an idea at the water cooler for a new web site or ipad edition, something ancillary. “It’s all about being absorbed and immersed in your readers lives, not hitting and running.”
David Liu and Carley Roney are not alone in demonstrating the power and profitability of “media neutrality” and deep-down specialisation. But XO Group is a fine demonstration of how new and old media can be fused to create strong, modern multi-media brands. It also, though, underlines the scale of challenge for legacy publishers.
At the very least, traditional companies must fundamentally change their organisations, in much the way that Professor C.W.Anderson is suggesting for daily newspapers*. The business model must address seismic changes in reader values and advertiser appetites. But there’s more. The editor can no longer be the king or queen of an ambitious media brand. No more devils in Prada. The content team must share parity, power and funding with strong teams devoted to ‘audience insight’ and digital development. Liu says almost one-third of XO Group’s employees are “technical”. How’s that for a different kind of media company?
Flattening the publishing company hierarchy may, indeed, be the key to ensuring that a magazine or newspaper (whether digital or hard copy) can become a versatile media channel for the future. Otherwise, the traditional hard copy brand may not survive at all, let alone help to revive a threatened business. There’s a lot of kicking and screaming to come.
* “Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan Journalism in the Digital Age” by C.W.Anderson (Temple University Press, 2012).
UPDATE: 16 December 2014: David Liu and Carley Roney hand over day-to-day control: XO Group Inc., “the premier consumer internet and media company devoted to weddings, pregnancy, and everything in between”, today announced that two of its co-founders, the husband and wife team of David Liu and Carley Roney, are completing the executive transition that they began nearly two years ago and are handing off their day-to-day management roles. Mike Steib, who joined the company 18 months ago, remains President and CEO.
“Over the last 18 years, Carley and I have been dedicated to building XO Group into the leading multi-platform life stage company, creating lasting and powerful consumer brands,” said David Liu, Co-Founder of XO Group and Chairman of the Board. “Two years ago, The Board and I began to execute on a thoughtful, public, and methodical plan to implement a seamless executive transition, and today marks the final step. This past year, Mike and the talented leadership team at XO have laid the foundation for XO’s digital marketplace transformation, invested in its infrastructure and talent, significantly increased content output, and released eight new apps. Under Mike’s continued leadership, supported by Carley’s brand ambassadorship, I expect XO Group will build the definitive digital marketplace that transforms the wedding industry.”
“It’s been a great opportunity to work closely with David and Carley during this transition, and I’m honored to carry the company forward and realize their dreams for XO Group,” stated Steib. “We have beloved brands, a successful business, and I’m confident in our team’s ability to serve our audience as a successful content-driven digital marketplace.”
Liu will remain chairman of the XO Board of Directors. Roney will transition from her duties as Chief Content Officer to be Brand Ambassador for The Knot, The Nest, and The Bump. “I’m so lucky to have such a talented and passionate team at XO to take over the day to day of making rich content and delightful experiences for our communities,” said Roney. “I’m thrilled to be focusing my energy on evangelizing our brands and mission.”


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Google launched a business phone system and also released, in beta, several enhancements to its products for collaboration, messaging and web conferencing in G Suite for business.
The introduction of Google Voice for G Suite at this week’s Google Cloud Next conference covers a gap in the vendor’s enterprise portfolio. At launch, the cloud service offers fewer features — and comes with a smaller partner ecosystem — than telephony systems in Microsoft Office 365.
Google has certified one series of IP desk phones for Google Voice: the VVX series from Poly — formerly Plantronics and Polycom. Because it offers only basic features, the service should appeal to small businesses and small teams within a larger company.
Google’s voice service supports voicemail transcription, call forwarding, auto attendants and e-discovery. It also gives IT administrators a console for managing phone numbers and tracking usage.
Google Voice for G Suite is available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland and Austria.
G Suite for business adds data residency, IT controls
Although G Suite performs well in the small-business market, Google has struggled to win enterprise contracts against competition from Office 365.
One weakness of G Suite for business had been that it did not give enterprises control over where to store their data. That changed this week with the launch of data regions for G Suite, a feature introduced in the preview last summer. Businesses can now distribute storage of their data globally, or keep it on specific servers in the United States and Europe.
“The most interesting feature for large companies will be the data region capability,” said Jeffrey Mann, analyst at Gartner. “Not being able to define where their data is stored has been a major objection for G Suite.”
Google still needs to show its products can work for enterprises with a mix of cloud and premise-based technology, said TJ Keitt, analyst at Forrester Research. Microsoft, in contrast, has already proven itself to businesses.
“Part of the challenge for Google has always been how IT departments within larger companies view Google’s offerings, versus what they’re familiar with from a company like Microsoft,” Keitt said.
Hangouts Meet, Hangouts Chat and Google Assistant
Google added live captioning to its web conferencing platform, Hangouts Meet, and said the app would soon support meetings of up to 250 people. The vendor also added to Hangouts Meet a live broadcasting feature, with support for up to 100,000 viewers.
Microsoft has said real-time transcription for Microsoft Teams would launch in public preview soon. Last month, it launched a live broadcasting service, with support for up to 10,000 viewers.
Google will soon launch in beta support for Hangouts Chat within Gmail, letting users IM in the bottom left corner of the email dashboard. Hangouts Chat — a team collaboration app similar to Slack — will replace the consumer-focused messaging app Hangouts, which Google has supported in Gmail for years.
Meanwhile, Google has added the AI voice interface Google Assistant to the G Suite calendar, so users can perform basic commands — like querying upcoming meetings — with their voice.
“I expect that Google — who has impressive AI [and] machine learning, is now sharing a much stronger narrative and has added new enterprise customers — will continue to make a more compelling case for enterprise consideration,” said Wayne Kurtzman, analyst at IDC.


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Huawei Replacing Android with their New OS Name - Harmony
- 18 May, 2021
Huawei as a company has always been determined to provide the users with a holistic intelligent experience across all devices and scenarios. They have recognised the need to have an operating system of their own with improved cross-platform capabilities. This requirement was fulfilled by the company when they brought HarmonyOS into the picture.
Harmony OS is a microkernel-based, distributed operating system. It provides the users a smooth experience as well as a secure architecture. It also facilitates seamless collaboration across devices.
Why Huawei is switching to its own operating system?
By taking a 'single kernel across devices approach', Huawei aims to create a shared ecosystem of different devices. But there are certain reasons which specifically pushed Huawei to give HramonyOS a green flag.
US Ban on the venture
The recent US trade ban has made things worse for Huawei. The company can no longer offer Google’s apps and services on its latest devices. This reduces the value of the company as users will not be able to access their favorite apps.
Lost Access to Google
The trade ban on Huawei is largely affecting it because it has lost access to Google. All new Huawei devices were not able to access Google services on the official versions of Android. Not just Google they also lost apps likes Facebook, Amazon, Uber, eBay, and Paypal.
Road to 5G infrastructure is prohibited
The consequences of being on the US trade blacklist have sent Huawei’s 5G network and smartphone businesses into questionable condition. No nation in affiliation with the US will use Huawei’s 5G infrastructure for their networks. Countries like Sweden, UK, and many more have already put a ban on the expanding 5G infrastructure of Huawei.
Losing Collaboration from supporting brands
The escalated trade war with the US has led to global technology companies, including chip suppliers, and various other companies cutting off their ties with Huawei. Some of the well-known corporations that suspended their collaborations with Huawei are Alphabet Inc, Analog Devices Inc, Lumentum Holdings Inc, Panasonic Corp, US Chipmakers, and more.
Will Harmony OS be Beneficial for the Consumer?
The Chinese smartphone giant is said to launch Harmony in domestic PCs, smart wear products and automobiles, smart speakers and earphones by 2021, and then more devices. This will turn out to be fruitful for loyal Huawei users.
New option to choose from apart the Android and IOS
Our markets have a thing for options, which is now expanded with the entry of Harmony. Unlike Google and Apple, which use separate OSs for different types of electronic products, Huawei’s Harmony can be adapted for different devices and uses.
A large part of the difference between Harmony and the current market leaders, Android and iOS is the kernel. Kernels are the key of any OS and handle interactions with the underlying hardware, allocate resources, and define how programs are executed and operated. Android and iOS are based on monolithic kernels but Harmony has a microkernel that is more modular.
Distributed operating system
Huawei is aiming towards creating a shared ecosystem across devices from smartphones to smart speakers, wearables, and in-vehicle systems. Harmony OS is not limiting itself there in fact it will also be an open-source platform, so developers will be able to provide apps for the platform and other manufacturers of smartphones may even choose to use the operating system.
Harmony OS : An Easy Platform for Developers
IoT devices nowadays allow less storage and memory than even some good smartphones. This could be solved by one line of Harmony OS code rather than using 100 lines of code in Android. This will enable the developers to code their apps once and deploy them across multiple devices, creating a tightly integrated ecosystem across all user devices.
Why will it not be that easy for harmony to succeed?
Huawei has the talent, ambition, and a home market advantage but still, there are a lot of hurdles in the way of Harmony OS being successful. In terms of global achievements, there will be a few points in question for Huawei.
Huawei is still facing trust issues due to the US trade war and ban on various Chinese companies fearing theft of data. The allegations imposed will restrict users to share information like details of credit and debit cards etc. This in turn will affect the acceptance of the OS in the market.
Lack of google support & Resemblance of android
Google not supporting any OS with its associated applications is a disadvantage for the users who liked its applications. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS have a stranglehold on smartphone operating systems, which will be difficult to change.
Expensive than before
It will be quite difficult for Huawei to maintain its premium pricing in the market without offering equal or more to the users. The cost of developing and setting up will directly affect the price of the devices. Huawei’s pricing ecosystem will change greatly as they have now lost their pricing advantage.


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In the last few hours, we have informed you about the tens of thousands of gaming companies that have decided not to participate in E3 2023, leaving the Los Angeles fair without the support of Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft, Tencent, SEGA, and many others. However, the difficulties do not only concern the participation of large publishers.
The company that is organizing the event, ReedPop, for those who are uninitiated, has made several changes. The current vice president Michael Kisken will take his place.
This is another indication that things are not going in the right direction, according to a newspaper that has spoken with various industry experts, according to whom E3 2023 will not be scheduled regularly.
The cancellation of the event will be officially announced shortly, so please keep an eye on the ground when this news comes out. On March 31, 2023, just one year after the announcement of E3 2022's digital version, the announcement of the event will be announced.


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Temple-Inland has picked up the Baby Wumbler license from the Giddy Gander company and the property will soon be appearing watermelon boxes and bins designed for shipping the fruit to and storing it at supermarkets.
Temple-Inland produces corrugated packaging and owns six containerboard mills and 64 converting facilities. The company is working with Giddy Gander and its partner, the National Watermelon Association of the United States, for the promo. It’s a good fit, as Baby Wumblers are born from watermelons.
A Wumbler Patch e-commerce site at www.wumblerpatch.com is launching this month, and a full book line and associated products are set to hit the market this coming holiday season.


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Can I become profitable promoting Atomy merchandise, or is that too good to be true? | cash
ON The South Korean cosmetics company is making a big foray into the UK, claiming that those who sign up as sales reps can earn thousands in commissions and bonuses of up to £ 720,000 every week.
Founded in 2009, Atomy has grown to become one of the world’s largest multi-level marketing (MLM) companies – where individuals make money selling items and getting people to sign up – and claims 15 million worldwide To have members.
After launching in the US, Canada, Australia and other areas, it has its sights set on the UK and Europe and says tens of thousands of people have already signed up.
It is the latest in a line of direct selling beauty companies that are likely to particularly attract women who may be facing financial problems and are looking for new ways to make money – a trend accelerated by the pandemic.
The company’s introductory videos and promotional materials highlight the huge sums of money that can supposedly be made as a “distributor” – including six-figure cash rewards and perks for those who reach the top of the program, such as a personal assistant and personal driver.
MLM programs typically consist of large numbers of people selling items such as beauty and cleaning supplies, candles, and books from home. They are controversial and there are dozens of individuals and groups in the UK fighting them on social media.
Hey Hun … #BanTheScam campaign group claims MLM is a “predatory business model” that should be banned and is planning a protest in central London on August 28th.
Meanwhile, another critic of this type of system told the Observer that he believed Atomy was an “economic cult”. However, there is no evidence that UK authorities are investigating MLM.
Critics have called them “pyramid schemes,” but Atomy denies this. Describing itself as “a consumer-centric network marketing company,” it adds that people can join for free, with no obligation to sell any product, and that the vast majority of its customers are “consumer only” – meaning no commissions from the sale. Its official launch event took place on July 28th at the New Theater Royal in Portsmouth.
The British company is called Atomy Distribution. It has an office in Guildford and is planning seminars to help people learn more about this “business opportunity.”
Specializing in beauty and skin care products and nutritional supplements, it offers people the opportunity to become their own boss and earn extra income by becoming distributors.
In her video message to potential recruits, she claims that through her compensation plan you can “make all dreams in your life scenario come true”.
Put simply, members collect points through their personal purchases and through purchases of their “legs”, that is, the customer team that they have recruited as members.
The points are then converted into commissions and other payments.
Before you can start collecting commissions, you need a minimum number of personal points plus those for each of your routes.
However, unlike some similar companies, members buy from an online mall rather than another retailer. This means that distributors don’t have to hold and pay for inventory that they may never be able to sell.
Atomy has five levels of salespeople known as “dealers” and seven “championships”, each with their own set of rules.
There is a complex system of commission payments, bonuses and other incentives.
In a video, Ruby McGrath, Managing Director for the UK and Europe, says that in terms of general commission, distributors receive a “score” for reaching each dealer, and each score is “approximately” $ five. “The maximum number of points you can earn per day is 300,” she adds. This indicates a commission of no more than $ 1,500 (£ 1,080) per day.
Then there are the championship bonuses known as “once in a lifetime” rewards for reaching each level. Those who reach the bottom level get some company products, while Atomy claims those who get to the top level known as “Imperial Master” status would receive £ 720,000 in cash, plus other perks like “office rent, personal assistant and driver rental ”.
To join, a person must provide the membership number of the person they are referring to.
Atomy’s website says it has more than 400 products, although the mall listed a smaller range on its UK website last week, from £ 5 for four tubes of toothpaste to £ 180 for the Absolute Skincare Set.
The British launch film on YouTube contains a sequence in which the company bosses have afternoon tea with “a very special guest” – who turns out to be the queen’s doppelganger. The doppelganger flips through an Atomy brochure while drinking tea and eating sandwiches on the terrace of a manor house and is then happy about a basket of products from the company.
The UK direct selling association, the Direct Selling Association (DSA), which includes cosmetics company Avon and health and beauty company Amway, estimates that there are 631,000 direct sellers in the UK, 96% of whom are women. The DSA is an association controlled by its members and operates a code of conduct that they must adhere to.
The Observer asked the DSA if they knew about Atomy UK and if they had applied for membership. She replied that “we are not aware of this company”.
The DSA has said in the past that while multilevel marketing structures appear “similar to pyramid schemes” – which are illegal in the UK – they are in fact much different and more like a traditional corporate business model.
The US Direct Selling News website recently published a “Global 100” list of direct selling companies that ranked Amway first and Atomy 12th. In 2020 Atomy’s annual sales were $ 1.48 billion.
David Brear, who describes himself as a writer who has studied cults, told the Observer that he believed Atomy was an “economic cult” that spread a “cruel illusion.”
However, McGrath says that “you don’t have to be a sales member to enjoy Atomy’s products” and that “97% of our customers are only consumers (ie, don’t earn any commission)”.
She adds: “Our members love our products and recommend them to people to try them out … there is no obligation to buy, no entry fee, no inventory, no minimum purchase requirement.
“Also, unlike other network marketing companies, our consumers buy through the online mall and not through a person.”
McGrath says that out of the maximum commission of $ 1,500 per day, “reaching this level takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Ordinarily we would say that someone who makes Atomy their full-time job takes over three years of dedication and hard work. “
She added that Atomy is “considering” an application for the DSA.


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U.S. consumer confidence increased one index point in the first quarter to a score of 107, maintaining an above-the-baseline optimism level for a year now in Nielsen’s Global Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions Survey. Conversely, confidence declined six points in Canada to a score of 96, marking the country’s lowest score since 2012.
While overall confidence has risen for four consecutive quarters in the U.S., the only confidence indicator that increased in the first quarter was job prospects, which rose five percentage points to 55%. Personal finance sentiment and immediate spending intentions each declined two percentage points, dropping to 62% and 50%, respectively, from fourth-quarter 2014.
“In the U.S., optimism continued to move forward in the first quarter, likely influenced by the addition of nearly 600,000 new jobs and low gasoline prices, which put more money in consumers’ wallets,” said James Russo, senior vice president, Nielsen Global Consumer Insights. “Consumer spending picked up in the first quarter, with fast-moving consumer goods sales rising 2.5%, compared to an annual increase of only 1.4% during 2014. While 2015 is off to a good start, half of Americans are still in a recessionary mindset, and nearly 35% say they live paycheck to paycheck. As this undercurrent of uncertainty still permeates, consumers continue to think carefully about how and where they spend their money.”
In Canada, a downbeat economic outlook led to a 10-percentage point decline in sentiment about job prospects to 44%—the lowest level since 2009—and a six-percentage point decline for immediate spending intentions to 37%, the lowest level since 2012. Sentiment about personal finances also dropped, falling seven percentage points to 55% from fourth-quarter 2014.
“In Canada, consumer confidence still remains volatile and uncertain even though the recession is well behind us,” said Carman Allison, vice president of consumer insights, Nielsen Canada. “There are myriad factors in the Canadian market that are currently contributing to a decline in optimism. A drop in confidence is normal following the holiday spending season when the bills start rolling in, but this year consumers were also reeling from the effects of the coldest winter in 25 years, which led many to spend more time indoors. Exacerbating the situation further was the drop in oil prices, which led to significant job losses in the country. While consumers may be saving at the pump, the cost of most other essentials is on the rise, and inflationary pressures still plague wallets.”
Other findings include:
- Consumer confidence rises one point to a global index score of 97.
- European consumer confidence makes significant strides in key markets.
- Nine of 14 countries in Asia-Pacific start the year at or above a baseline reading of 100.
- Global concerns about the economy and job security decreased while health and work/life balance concerns increased.
- Confidence in Latin America declines to the lowest level since 2011.
For more detail and insight, download Nielsen’s Q1 2015 Global Consumer Confidence Report.
About the Nielsen Global Survey
The Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions was conducted Feb. 23 – March 13, 2015, and polled more than 30,000 online consumers in 60 countries throughout Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East/Africa and North America. The sample has quotas based on age and sex for each country based on its Internet users and is weighted to be representative of Internet consumers. It has a margin of error of ±0.6%. This Nielsen survey is based only on the behavior of respondents with online access. Internet penetration rates vary by country. Nielsen uses a minimum reporting standard of 60% Internet penetration or an online population of 10 million for survey inclusion. The China Consumer Confidence Index is compiled from a separate mixed methodology survey among 3,500 respondents in China. The sub-Saharan African countries in this study are compiled from a separate mobile methodology survey among 1,600 respondents in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria. The Nielsen Global Survey, which includes the Global Consumer Confidence Index, was established in 2005.


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Wayfair (NYSE:W – Get a Rating) had its target price lowered by the UBS Group from $65.00 to $45.00 in a research report released Friday to clients and investors, Stock Target Advisor reports. The company currently has a “neutral” rating on the stock. UBS Group’s target price would suggest a potential upside of 18.80% from the company’s current price.
Several other brokerages also recently commented on W. MKM Partners launched coverage on Wayfair shares in a research report on Thursday, July 28. They have set a “neutral” rating and a price target of $50.00 for the company. Credit Suisse Group lowered its target price on shares of Wayfair from $195.00 to $150.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a Friday, Aug. 5 report. Cowen lowered his price target on shares of Wayfair from $140.00 to $84.00 in a Monday, August 1 research report. Truist Financial lowered its price target on shares of Wayfair from $130.00 to $120.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday August 1. Finally, Cowen cut its price target on Wayfair shares from $140.00 to $84.00 in a Monday, August 1, report. Ten research analysts gave the stock a sell rating, eight gave the company a hold rating and eight gave the company a buy rating. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $96.19.
Wayfair shares down 3.4%
Shares of W were down $1.32 during Friday trading hours, hitting $37.88. The company had a trading volume of 54,696 shares, compared to an average volume of 3,724,706. Wayfair has a 12-month low of $38.70 and a 12-month high of $298.00. The company has a fifty-day moving average of $55.06 and a 200-day moving average of $70.26. The company has a market capitalization of $4.02 billion, a price-earnings ratio of -4.06 and a beta of 2.87.
Wayfair (NYSE:W – Get Rating) last released its results on Thursday, August 4. The company reported ($3.21) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analyst consensus estimates of ($3.24) by $0.03. The company posted revenue of $3.28 billion for the quarter, versus a consensus estimate of $3.19 billion. The company’s revenues were down 14.9% from the same quarter last year. In the same quarter a year earlier, the company posted earnings per share of $1.23. On average, equity analysts expect Wayfair to post -12.28 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Separately, Chief Financial Officer Michael D. Fleisher sold 5,874 shares of the company in a transaction that took place on Monday, July 18. The stock was sold at an average price of $53.99, for a total transaction of $317,137.26. Following the completion of the sale, the CFO now directly owns 66,664 shares of the company, valued at $3,599,189.36. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, accessible via the SEC’s website. In other Wayfair news, insider Steve Oblak sold 1,687 shares of the company in a trade on Friday, September 16. The stock was sold at an average price of $46.59, for a total transaction of $78,597.33. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 160,746 shares of the company, valued at $7,489,156.14. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, accessible via the SEC’s website. Additionally, Chief Financial Officer Michael D. Fleisher sold 5,874 shares of the company in a transaction that took place on Monday, July 18. The stock was sold at an average price of $53.99, for a total transaction of $317,137.26. Following the sale, the CFO now directly owns 66,664 shares of the company, valued at $3,599,189.36. The disclosure of this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 20,199 shares of the company worth $993,625 in the past three months. 26.81% of the shares are currently held by company insiders.
Wayfair Institutional Trading
Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently increased or reduced their stakes in the stock. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Wayfair by 2.1% in the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 13,716 shares of the company valued at $2,605,000 after purchasing an additional 280 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in Wayfair by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 236,395 shares of the company worth $44,908,000 after acquiring an additional 7,085 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Wayfair by 4.3% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 925,784 shares of the company valued at $175,611,000 after acquiring an additional 37,909 shares during the period. Schroder Investment Management Group increased its stake in Wayfair by 56.9% in the fourth quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 2,437 shares of the company valued at $462,000 after acquiring an additional 884 shares during the period. Finally, GSA Capital Partners LLP purchased a new equity stake in Wayfair during Q4 for $232,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.05% of the company’s shares.
(Get a rating)
Wayfair Inc is active in e-commerce in the United States and internationally. The company supplies approximately thirty-three million products for the home sector under various brands. It offers online selections of furniture, decor, housewares and home improvement products through its sites, including brands Wayfair, Joss & Main, AllModern, Birch Lane and Perigold.
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Production of the Steam Deck has improved to such an extent that Valve can begin shipping out more than twice the amount of its portables every week, according to a tweet shared on the handheld’s official Twitter channel today that can also confirm the company has finished sending out its last batch of Q2 emails, allowing it to move on to Q3 orders, all of which should be shipping out between the months of July and September. Valve previously announced that the official docking station for the Steam Deck had been delayed indefinitely due to parts shortages and COVID closures at its manufacturing facilities, but it remains unclear when that accessory with HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4, Gigabit Ethernet, and 3x USB 3.1 ports will ultimately ship out. Reservations for the acclaimed handheld continue to be taken, although current orders aren’t expected to be fulfilled until October 2022 or later. A recent video shared by Valve highlights some of the improvements that the Steam Deck has received since its release in February, including per-app performance profiles, adjustable refresh rates, and improved Windows support.
Hello! Some great news on the production front. We just sent the last batch of Q2 emails, and we’ll start sending Q3 reservation emails on the 30th.— Steam Deck (@OnDeck) June 27, 2022
Production has picked up, and after today we'll be shipping more than double the number of Steam Decks every week! pic.twitter.com/kAHE0zRrV7
It’s been a few months since we launched Steam Deck, and we’re floored by the excitement we’ve seen as more and more customers receive their Steam Decks and share impressions. The team has loved seeing pictures and videos of where you’re using it, how you’re using it, how you’ve customized it, and what you’re playing. Keep it coming!
In the meantime, we’ve continued working through our own list of bugs to fix and features to add. We’ve also been paying attention to our customers, and a good number of the updates in the last couple months are directly due to customer feedback. Please keep that coming as well!
Source: Steam Deck


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The backlash against Big Tech on Monday moved into a new phase as officials from nearly all US states announced an antitrust investigation into the dominance of Internet giant Google.
The announcement from 50 attorneys general calls for a probe into whether Google abused its power in the online ecosystem at the expense of rivals or consumers.
The move, described as a preliminary probe of Google’s actions in online advertising, highlights the growing complaints about Big Tech dominance and follows a separate investigation into Facebook Inc announced last week by a coalition of US states.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that the probe underscores fears about how Google benefits from data harvested from the online ecosystem.
“What we’ve all learned is that while many consumers believe the Internet is free ... the Internet is not free,” Paxton told a news conference in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington.
“There is nothing wrong with a business becoming the biggest game in town if it does so through free market competition, but we have seen evidence that Google’s business practices may have undermined consumer choice, stifled innovation, violated users’ privacy and put Google in control of the flow and dissemination of online information,” he said.
“The question for us is whether Google has strayed from its founding principles to not do evil,” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes told the news conference.
“We’re looking into whether Google’s business practices have undermined free market competition — and hurt consumers,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro added.
The probe is being backed by 48 states — with only California and Alabama absent — and joined by Puerto Rico and the federal District of Columbia.
Officials stopped short of calling for any specific remedies such as a breakup — which some Google critics have called for.
“It is an investigation to determine the facts,” Paxton said. “Right now it is on advertising, but the facts will lead where the facts will lead.”
Google senior vice president of global affairs Kent Walker said in a blog post on Friday last week that the company would cooperate with regulators, while stressing that its services “help people, create more choice, and support thousands of jobs and small businesses across the United States.”
According to research firm eMarketer, Google leads the US digital ad market with a 37.2 percent share worth about US$48 billion this year and is expected to control 20 percent of all US ad spending, online and offline combined.
Google is by far the largest online search engine and captures nearly 75 percent of search-related online ads in the US, according to eMarketer.
Christopher Sagers, a professor of antitrust law at Cleveland State University, said it was potentially “very significant” to see the state coalitions working on antitrust.
“After the past few years, the [US President Donald] Trump administration’s antitrust program has come to seem pretty inactive, influenced by a lot of politics that have made it hard to interpret,” Sagers said.
On Friday, New York state Attorney General Letitia James announced an action on behalf of seven other states and the District of Columbia to probe “whether Facebook has stifled competition and put users at risk.”
The antitrust actions come against a backdrop of declining public trust in big online firms, and fines levied against Facebook and Google over privacy violations.
Charlotte Slaiman of the consumer group Public Knowledge welcomed the investigations as “an important and powerful step” that “can help consumers and innovative competitors access markets for platforms that are more fair and more competitive.”
STAYING AHEAD: Fitch said that TSMC remains technologically ahead of others, but Samsung is building a new chip fab, while China is investing in its domestic industry As escalating US-China tensions and COVID-19-related production disruptions force US technology supply chains to transform, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$12 billion chip fabrication plant in Arizona would be key to spurring greater US production of core semiconductor components, Fitch Ratings said. “We view the US-TSMC alliance as a first step in building a more autonomous US technology supply chain, given high barriers to entry, specifically related to the significant capital and design capability required for leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing,” Fitch said in a statement on Tuesday. “By working with TSMC, US chipmakers will not face the financial burden of incremental investment
DIVERSIFICATION: Although COVID-19 would push more companies to produce in emerging markets, DBS said that it was unlikely that firms would totally leave China Geopolitical tensions and supply disruptions are expected to accelerate the migration of manufacturing out of China, as concerns about the risk of production concentrated in one country increase, S&P Global Ratings said. Although its economic expansion might be weaker than previous levels due to the accelerated relocation of manufacturing, China’s economic growth would still be stronger than that of most other economies, the ratings agency said. “While absolute growth rates will moderate, we believe China’s economic performance will continue to be a key sovereign credit support,” S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Tan Kim Eng (陳錦榮) said in a statement on Thursday. “Its growth
Taiwan’s corporate landscape has changed significantly over the past 20 years, with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) replacing Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) as the revenue leader, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) has emerged as the most profitable firm, a survey of Taiwan’s 50 largest companies published on Tuesday last week showed. The Chinese-language CommonWealth Magazine survey ranked Taiwan’s 50 largest companies based on their revenue last year, and compared them with the results of a similar survey it conducted in 2000. Only 33 companies on the original list remained in this year’s rankings, the survey found, following two
Luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental Taipei (文華東方酒店) yesterday announced that it would suspend guestroom operations and lay off related staffers from Monday, as regional border controls and travel restrictions are unlikely to be lifted anytime soon. The partial shutdown would not affect the five-star hotel’s restaurants, bars, spa, and conference and banquet facilities, which this month have almost recovered to pre-pandemic levels, it said. “Mandarin Oriental Taipei will suspend all guestroom services from June 1 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the hotel said after four months of maintaining normal operations proved unsustainable. The change necessitates downsizing and the hotel is handling


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Amazon has some new products on the way. The company is holding an invite-only, virtual event today, where it’s expected to introduce products from across its lineup of brands.
Chances are, there’s going to be a lot to see. Amazon is unusually good at keeping its upcoming releases under wraps, and it usually uses its annual September event to announce a lot of new products. Those could come from Amazon’s own product lineup — which includes the Kindle, Fire TV, and Echo — and from some of its acquired brands, like Eero, Ring, and Blink.
The Echo is the big one to keep an eye on. It’s been a while since we saw new updates for the Echo, which last saw a new version of its standard and Dot models in 2020. The Kindle just saw a major update to its entry-level model, but it’s been around three years since the higher-end Oasis was updated. The Fire TV Stick just got an update last year, but it is possible Amazon could have other parts of the Fire TV ecosystem it wants to update.
Then there’s Ring and Eero. Those product lines are a lot harder to predict. But if we do see them, there’s a good chance they’ll continue to build out the product ecosystems they’ve already been working on since they’ve had fairly recent additions to some of their key products.
The event is being livestreamed on an invite-only basis, so it’s not open to the public. The Verge will be covering the event as it happens, giving you updates as they come in through our live blog. The event kicks off at 9AM PT / 12PM ET.
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Archerfield Links tees up new partnership with Callaway
The link up will see the East Lothian venue benefit from the full portfolio of brands that the Callaway Group of companies has to offer.
Industry-leading Toptracer technology will also be installed at Archerfield’s grass-covered practice range.
Neil Howie, Callaway EMEA’s president and managing director, said: “We are proud to welcome Archerfield Links as one of our High Performance Partners, and we look forward to working closely with the team in East Lothian to create a host of exceptional customer experiences.”
Tom Younger, CEO of Archerfield Links, added: “Partnering with Callaway, and its portfolio of brands, will allow us to further elevate the level of service and enjoyment we can offer our members and guests.
“It’s an exciting time at Archerfield Links, and we look forward to developing this new and important, holistic partnership.”
Teeing up the new relationship, Archerfield Links received a visit from the Callaway Tour Truck.
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Has been formed in a new way Ice skates studio Full circle announced that Ice skating 4 will not be at EA Play, adding another game to the growing list of titles that will not appear at the event. Full Circle said in a statement that it is “committed to doing this right” and that it takes time. However, the developer will have a little something to show fans later today, so stay tuned.
The statement reads:
Holy @%$ *!… It’s been a year?!?!
What have we been? Well, we started a new studio in January, have a bunch of super talented people joining the family, and we’re hard at work on the new game. Now, we know many of you were hoping to see more from us this week but we’re not ready for official timing yet and we won’t be on the EA Play live on Wednesday. Year. It’s still early days and we’re committed to getting this right, which means it will take some time.
Our number one goal is not to blow it up. For you, for us… for Skate. HOWEVER, we’d love to share a little something with you all tomorrow.
With Ice skating 4, next Block effectand new Dragon age absent from EA Play, it remains to be seen what surprises Electronic Arts has in store. Perhaps, the publisher will clear up the fans with rumors Dead space reboot? Stay tuned this weekend to find out.
We’ll update our readers when we hear more from Full Circle later today.
https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2021/07/19/skate-4-not-at-ea-play/ | Skate 4 will not be available at EA Play, Full Circle needs more time


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The Norway division of iTunes made a huge blunder yesterday when it accidentally made copies of Kelly Clarkson’s upcoming album, All I Ever Wanted, available for download via iTunes. Norwegian iTunes users noticed yesterday that 30 second previews of Clarkson’s new CD had become available, only to soon find out that full track downloads were possible as well.
The leak, attributed to an iTunes error, has already caused Clarkson’s record label to panic as copies of the soon to be released album have already been unleashed on P2P networks. I wouldn’t be too worried, though. After all, I doubt that Clarkson’s demographic of listeners are the type of people who even know what P2P is.
It’s a tad amusing though, if not downright ironic, that this debacle occurred in Norway. If you recall, Apple had previously run into legal trouble in Norway over its failure to offer DRM-free songs on iTunes, and a consumer advocacy group subsequently initiated legal proceedings against Apple over its failure to open up iTunes to other music players. Of course, these legal proceedings were dropped when Apple announced that iTunes would soon be going DRM-free. But what are the odds that Norway would be at the center of a big music leak involving DRM-free songs after it had spent so much energy crusading against DRM in the preceding months.
Lastly, an album leak is probably the last thing the former American Idol winner needs. Clarkson’s last CD was a bust, and the success of her upcoming album may well determine where her career goes from here. Not that I’m a fan or anything..


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The latest Business Pilot Barometer shows that window and door sales bounced back from the decline seen December with a 34% jump in sales. More promising still, new leads more than doubled – up 111% in January on December! Conversion rates remained more or less static, hovering at around the 42% mark.
This bounce in demand for windows is in stark contrasts to forecasts for the wider economy. This includes the consumer confidence index from market research firm GfK, which recorded a drop to -28 from -26 in December, when it jumped by the most in eight years on the back of news about COVID-19 vaccines.
This may be in part driven by growing concern about the impact of increased hospitalisations the knock -on effect of how and when, the UK will come out of Lockdown. This has also prompted a downgrading of economic forecasts in the first quarter of this year. KPMG, for example suggesting UK growth for 2021 could oscillate anywhere between 2.2 and 5.6%.
The million-dollar question is, will the home improvement sector remain immune, as it did last year, to wider concerns about the economy?
We can draw confidence from the start that we have seen this year, especially when we consider that a number of retailers came back later in the month, following extended Christmas breaks.
As we have highlighted in previous editions, the housing market remains active while we should expect completions in March ahead of the Stamp Duty holiday deadline to convert into new business in April and May.
Forecasts that unemployment will peak at 6%, while significant, could also have been very much worse given the size of the shock to the UK economy.
Year-on-year analysis January 2020 v. 2021
January 2021 is the first month in which we can draw a year-on-year comparison. This was obviously a time when COVID-19 appeared a far and distant problem.
Although given the unique set of challenges the UK has seen in the last year, we should need to resist the temptation to apply too much weight to the figures, a comparison of leads January 2020 to 2021, shows new business enquiries were down year-on-year by around 8%. Sales were 25% down
The caveat is that in January 2020, we weren’t in Lockdown and conversions were far easier to achieve.
These are perhaps the learning points for all of us. We need to make sure that our businesses are ready for whatever we don’t see coming next! Business Pilot mobilises cloud-based technologies to give you the ability to run your business from anywhere. Just imagine how much more ready you would have been for COVID-19 with the ability to switch and keep your teams connected, from your sales and admin office to your spare bedroom, kitchen table, or garden office, instantly?!


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MILAN — Just months after the Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. and Ermenegildo Zegna unveiled their Essenze quintet of men’s fragrances, they announced a new men’s eau de toilette, Ermenegildo Zegna Uomo, which will hit stores this coming spring.
Uomo will be a pillar in Zegna’s fragrance portfolio, according to Lauder’s president and chief executive officer Fabrizio Freda. “It will be much bigger than anything that has been done in the past in Zegna fragrances. There is no comparison,” he said in an interview at the fashion brand’s international headquarters on Via Savona. “The juice wants to reflect the best of the Italian ideals, the Made in Italy concept, the Made in Italy style, the Made in Italy values, but with the maximum possible appeal around the globe.”
Lauder took over the Zegna license from L’Oréal in July 2011. Men’s fragrances currently represent 35 percent of the American company’s global perfume business, and luxury and men’s fragrances are the fastest-growing categories, so expectations for Zegna — a men’s luxury brand — are high, said Freda. He declined to provide an estimate, but industry sources said the fragrance could bring in $150 million at retail in its first 12 months.
Gildo Zegna, ceo of Ermenegildo Zegna and grandson of its founder, said he wanted fragrances to become a big part of the company’s global business.
“You buy a fragrance, you buy a dream. And it’s easier to sell dreams with fragrances than with fashion,” said Zegna.
He added that the company is actively courting new customers in China, where it has been present since the early Nineties, and in the U.S., where a new generation of young men is open to discovering fashion through fragrance.
The fragrance contains the citrus bergamot grown at Zegna’s own fields in Calabria, Italy, as well as Violettyne Captive, the essence of violet leaves. Other notes include vetiver and cedarwood.
Model Ryan Burns stars in a print campaign shot by Matthew Brookes and a commercial directed by Jonas Åkerlund. The mostly black-and-white images show Burns driving a convertible along the craggy cliffs of Capri, mounting the steps of Casa Malaparte and joining his dream woman on the roof. The bottle, a glass pillar with horizontal linear grooves, is evocative of the house.
Uomo targets men of all ages who share, “this really deep passion for life, this deep belief that they can become who they fully are, that they can achieve the best in their lives, and they want to work at it,” said Veronique Gabai-Pinsky, global brand president of Lauder’s Aramis & Designer Fragrances division.
She also said Lauder and Zegna would focus heavily on digital promotion of Uomo. “Men don’t ask for directions,” she quipped. “They love to get their own information first, and so the digital platform becomes very important.”
Uomo will be distributed in department stores and perfumeries worldwide starting in spring 2013, with the exception of Brazil, Venezuela, Russia, the Middle East, the U.S., France and China, where it will arrive in the fall. Key markets for the fragrance include Mexico, Germany, Italy, China, Australia and the U.S. The edt will be available in three sizes: 3.4-oz. ($80); 1.7-oz. ($66), and 1-oz. ($48). A 3.4-oz. aftershave lotion and balm will sell for $56, while the 6.8-oz. hair and body wash will sell for $39.
@kith is moving into children’s. The men’s and women’s streetwear brand has launched Kidset, a Kith kids line located in New York at 64 Bleecker Street. The line includes mini versions of staple Kith pieces like the Astor bomber jacket and the Kith box logo sweatshirts, along with a wall that can display up to 120 pairs of shoes from @adidas, @newbalance, @timberland and more. #wwdfashion
“I just wanted to create this fully rounded character, but I do think what excited me most was just the opportunity to give a group of people representation that I feel needs it. I like to do characters in projects that stand for something and Karolina definitely does, so that was really exciting to me,” @ginnygardner says of her new role in @hulu’s “The Runaways.” Gardner plays Karolina Dean, a queer superhero, which is a rarity for @marvel. Read more about Gardner’s character on WWD.com #wwdeye (📷: @dandoperalski)
@heriethpaul and @gracebol have a moment on the @victoriassecret fashion show 2017. See every look from the runway on WWD.com. Link in bio. (📷: @giovanni_giannoni_photo) #wwdfashion #victoriassecret #VSFashionShow
“Azzedine has been one of the biggest influences in my life. He has always been such a strong, loving, fatherly figure to me. I call him Papa. His designs are indescribably unique, they are pieces of art. He knew how to make the female form look its loveliest. I have so many memories of him; my favorite might be during my first show with him in Paris. He liked me and he wanted to help me get more work. He called all his friends at Kenzo and Comme des Garcons, and asked them to book me. They said, ‘But she can’t walk!’ And he said, ‘but she has such a great ass!' His friendship and support has been the great privilege of my career. I can't imagine life without him. Repose en paix mon Papa.” - @stephanieseymour tells @wwd. #wwdfashion (📷: @steveeichner) #alaia #azzedinealaia
Azzedine Alaïa, flanked by two of his closest friends, models Stephanie Seymour and Naomi Campbell.
He designed Seymour’s dress for her 1995 wedding to Peter Brant, and treated Campbell (who famously called him Papa), like a daughter. For more on the legendary designer, tap the link in bio. #wwdfashion #alaia #azzedinealaia


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Keeping your Windows PC fully patched and updated is a vital defense against hackers and malware, but applying patching can be a pain. Here's a simple (and free) download that will help you streamline the process.
Showing results 1 to 20 of 281
You're having a coffee and surfing when an apologetic stranger asks if she can charge her Android phone on your USB port. But she's installing malware on your PC. Here's how to stop it.
Windows 8, like Vista before it, is on its way to the trash heap of PC history unless Microsoft makes some big changes as soon as possible.
One security firm warns that Android malware could rocket this year and hit the 1 million milestone, as malware writers and hackers continue to target post-PC platforms.
Malwarebytes has established its reputation as a supplier of free anti-malware software to more than 150 million home PC users. Now it has announced its first Enterprise Edition.
The company finds cybercriminals had infiltrated unsecure supply chains to hijack brand new computers, prompting an operation to disrupt the emerging Nitol botnet, and over 500 other strains of malware.
Microsoft, as it did with Vista, is giving Linux another chance to make the gains in the PC market with Windows 8, but can Linux take advantage of this opportunity?
New version of Windows, new logo; it's pretty routine. Except for Windows 7 which pretty much reinstated the Windows XP logo; if you see significance in everything you might feel that was an attempt to avoid the unfortunate associations with Vista (a version of Windows that had plenty of excellent improvements and advances, as long as you put it on a new PC with 4GB of RAM).
Microsoft is observing a 59% decline of AutoRun malware infections on XP, followed by 74% on Vista.
Getting malware onto smartphones has until now involved a PC somewhere along the way, but that's about to change. Next-generation mobile malware is only months away, which will attack the device directly, leading to developments such as mobile botnets, according to Amil Klein, chief technology officer at Trusteer.
If you're a Windows user that's holding onto your Vista or XP installation, then this recent security report from Microsoft might make you think about switching to Windows 7.
Android smartphones and Facebook are attracting more attention from malware writers, according to the AVG Community Powered Threat Report Q1 2011, which is a sort of "online neighborhood watch". In the PC market, there has been "an explosion in Blackhole Exploit Kits", which are mainly used to attack sercurity flaws in Oracle's Java and Adobe Reader.
Microsoft Windows 7 is the fastest-selling PC operating system of all time, which it should be because the market is bigger now than when Vista and XP were launched. There's still some uncertainty about when -- not if -- it will be bigger than XP, but on StatCounter's numbers, Windows 7 has already overtaken XP in the UK.
Microsoft has decided to disable the AutoRun feature on Windows XP. The "non-security update" doesn't affect shiny media" such as CDs or DVDs that contain Autorun files.
So says McAfee - but mobile malware still minuscule issue compared with PC threats...
Honeyd gives small companies the chance to get the same level of security big companies do by maintaining an old PC on their network to attract and capture malware for further study.
I've lost count of the number of times I've come across an 'expert' telling some poor soul who's had their PC trashed by malware that it was all their fault and that the problem could have been easily prevented by installing an antivirus package, and keeping that package up-to-date.If only life were that simple ...
With Windows 7 making buzz round the corner the security and protection have been started to get consolidated for pc running windows 7 operating systems. After all this time it seems that Microsoft has finally come out with their own malware and virus protection software.
Security Essential 2010 is a rogue anti-spyware program from the family of Internet Security 2010. This malware is installed in PC by Trojans which pretend to be Flash update claiming to be an essential software to view video online.
Vista Antivirus Pro 2010 is the renamed version of XP antivirus Pro 2010 which is specially designed to attack on computers with Windows Vista platform. When this malware attacks on PC, we start seeing various pop-ups and alerts showing a message ‘your PC is infected and hackers try to attack the PC’.


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Americans cut retail spending in October for the first time since March as interest rates reached a 22-year high.
Retail sales fell 0.1% in October compared with the prior month, the Commerce department reported Wednesday. This was the first monthly decline since March. At higher costs for items, consumers continue to increase credit-card debt.
Economic downturns have an effect on many aspects of society. While Americans continued to spend in October at restaurants and supermarkets -- rising by 0.3% and 0.7%, respectively -- automobile sales fell 1.1% in October, compared with the prior month.
In addition to the declining numbers, the downturn has surfaced in app downloads, as well as purchases made through them.
AppsFlyer found in 2023, the economic downturn had a significant impact on mobile app downloads.
Nearly all top media sources saw declines and app install ad-spend budgets fell by 20% in the third quarter of 2023 compared with Q3 in 2022.
AppsFlyer’s Performance Index analyzed 75 media sources, with at least 11.5 billion app installs from 30,000 apps from April to September 2023.
Apple Search Ads (ASA) and Meta led the way across iOS gaming and non-gaming app downloads. ASA ranked as the No. 1 media source for iOS gaming apps and non-gaming categories in AppsFlyer’s performance index.
The company came in No. 1 in nearly all the rankings across every region and every category, particularly in non-gaming. And the dominance of ASA in non-gaming is even more pronounced than it is in gaming, coming in at No. 1 in all the rankings across every category and every region except for Latin America with unmatched scale and high quality.
Meta ads have rebounded following Apple’s privacy changes in 2022, when the company announced significant restrictions on data access. Meta continues to adapt post iOS 14.5, coming in at No. 2 in the power and volume rankings.
The company’s performance is mostly fueled by non-gaming apps on SKAdNetwork, Apple’s privacy-centric attribution interface, where it drives the highest number of installs, well above the competition.
Google Ads came in at No. 3 in the rankings thanks to its scale among non-gaming apps. It should be noted that for Google, iOS is secondary compared to Android, especially when compared to its web business.
Applovin ranked No. 5 for gaming ads in the global power ranking, driven by success in casual and hyper-casual games.
For non-gaming, Meta ads ranked 2nd in the global power ranking for non-gaming, driven by its performance in Life & Culture where it ranked No. 2, while Google reached No. 5.
The Android remarketing ranking found Google and Meta, and TikTok For Business to some extent, dominate market share.
Google Ads, which is the No. 1 company across most remarketing rankings, came in at No. 2 to Meta Ads in the shopping. Meta ads was able to close the gap with Google in the global power ranking because of its success in shopping, where it surpassed Google to come out on top.
TikTok For Business came in at No. 3 in the global power ranking, driven by its significant scale, particularly for shopping apps. Liftoff ranked No. 4, and Adikteev and Remerge followed at No. 5 and No. 6, respectively.


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Fisanotti will report to Remo Ruffini, chairman and CEO of Moncler S.p.A, while also taking the title of strategic director on the brand’s strategic committee.
Fisanotti has worked his way up the corporate ladder at Nike over the last 23 years, beginning with retail and marketing jobs in South America and Europe before taking on executive roles including global vice president of sportswear and North America vice president of marketing. Most recently, he served as the sportswear label’s first-ever brand creative officer.
“Due to his professional background and strong brand-building knowledge gained during his extensive international career, Gino is the ideal candidate to support me in shaping Moncler’s further development towards a consumer culture company driven by purpose, experience, and a sense of community, while drawing inspiration from different worlds including entertainment, sports, art and music,” Ruffini said in a statement. “Together with Gino, we will continue to push cultural and creative frontiers beyond fashion and beyond luxury.”
Fisanotti’s central task at Moncler will consist of harboring a stronger connection between the label’s creativity, collections, product categories and communications in order to produce a more unified multichannel consumer experience.
In regards to the creation of the chief brand officer role, the company said “in a continuously and rapidly changing business environment, it is increasingly critical to be able to maintain a relevant brand identity that resonates with the spirit of the times…[The new position] will address the brand architecture strategy and storytelling across all touchpoints while supporting the company in embracing a new concept of luxury.”
In tandem with Fisanotti’s appointment, chief marketing and operating officer Roberto Eggs, who first joined Moncler in 2015, will step into the chief business strategy and global markets officer role for the Group.
In other fashion business news, GmbH’s Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Işik were announced as Trussardi creative directors last week.


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Lots of questions and interest in the Saucony Kinvara and the new Hattori. The 2011 Boston Expo will have many of the top brands showing their approach to the Minimalist conundrum. Saucony’s approach will be watched by many…
Saucony invites you to Step Into Minimalism!
certain, thousands of runners in this year’s Boston Marathon will be
running in minimalist footwear and a few will be barefoot altogether.
Without a doubt the minimalist trend has stirred quite a fascination and
wide debate among runners everywhere. But is it for YOU?
Join Saucony and an all-star panel of experts, including Dr. Jack Daniels,
“world’s greatest coach,” as they share their insights and advice on
how runners everywhere can integrate minimalist running into their
training programâˆ’safely and responsibly.
In addition, Michael Sandler, author of the bestselling Barefoot Running, will share how running shoeless saved his health after a life-altering accident. Dr. Marybeth Crane, one of the country’s most influential sports podiatrists, will discuss the benefits of stronger feet for stronger running. Spencer White,
head of Saucony’s Human Performance & Innovation Lab will give a
live demonstration highlighting the differences in muscle activation in
runners when wearing minimalist versus traditional running shoes.
award-winning collection of minimalist footwear will be available for
try-on, including the new Kinvara 2. Coaches and treadmills will be on
hand to experience natural running.
Hors d’Å“uvres, Vita Coco coconut water and beer/wine will be served!


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By Ed Oswald | Monday, December 28, 2009 at 8:35 am
If you’re looking to buy an iPhone in New York City, better be ready to visit your local Apple or AT&T store. The carrier has pulled the phone from its online lineup, and is giving little if any reason as to why it has done so. It appears to also be unavailable in Westchester County in New York and also in NYC’s New Jersey suburbs.
The Big Apple is one of AT&T’s problem spots when it comes to its network, and many have blamed high concentrations of the iPhone in the city for the problems. I guess the easiest way to fix this would be to attempt to slow down sales of the device there and hope that it keeps the problem from getting any worse.
“We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels,” was all AT&T gave Consumerist’s Laura Northrup when she asked for official comment. A online sales reprsentative went further, saying the company doesn’t “have enough towers to handle the phone.” There’s your answer, folks.
One has to think that Apple must be pretty upset right now. It now appears to be AT&T’s strategy to shut down sales of the iPhone in an area if its network can’t handle it. So who’s next? San Francisco? Philadelphia? Los Angeles? If this move isn’t an argument to trash the AT&T exclusive agreement ASAP, I don’t know what is.
Only a matter of time before Verizon makes fun of this one…


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Business & Economy
A third of eligible Newcastle businesses still not accessing coronavirus cash support
April 20, 2020
Newcastle City Council is urging all businesses who haven’t yet registered for grants to see them through the coronavirus crisis to check eligibility and sign up as quickly as possible.
More than 3000 businesses have received nearly £40 million from Newcastle City Council to help keep businesses trading but there are many more – around a third of eligible businesses – which have yet to apply.
Grants of £10,000 or £25,000 are available for businesses who receive small business rate relief and those in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors. The grants are cash the government has set aside to help small businesses and does not need to be paid back. All remaining eligible businesses who haven’t registered for grants should register online at www.newcastle.gov.uk/covidbusinesssupport for fast access to funding made available from the Government.
One of the businesses which has benefited from the scheme is software company Nebula Labs, based in the city centre. Co-founder, Dylan McKee, said: “We recently received the Government’s small business rates relief and COVID-19 relief grant from Newcastle City Council.
“I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the process so far; it’s been fast and really efficient and only a minor number of forms to fill in which has been really good as a busy SME manager at this time.
“Having the grant processed so quickly has been beneficial and allowed us to pay our suppliers and our city centre rent on time. And early on many occasions to our suppliers, which is good as many of our suppliers are regional SME’s themselves or freelancers and it’s good to keep their cashflow going.
“It’s also been great to be able to spend some of the grant on being able to afford further business development time so we come up with a plan to be able to get through these tough times and look ahead and work out how our business can change over the next few months to be more compatible with the new normal that we now live in, with distributed working, working remotely and working from home.
“So, thanks to the council team for really great work on the efficient processing of the grant money.”
Cllr Nick Forbes, Leader of Newcastle City Council added: “We’re committed to providing fast access to grants to help businesses like Dylan’s get through the coronavirus pandemic.
“Coronavirus isn’t just a health crisis, it’s also an economic crisis. We’re here to help businesses get through these difficult times and to protect our local economy, protect jobs and protect the future of our city.
“We are concerned that a number of businesses are yet to take advantage of the support available, so I’m urging all businesses to get in touch online so we can get these vital funds to your business. Our business support teams are processing applications as quickly as they can, typically within five to ten working days.
“We know these are difficult times for businesses but we’re here for you. Please don’t struggle in silence. Get in touch and we’ll get through this together.”
For further information about business support and to register for support visit www.newcastle.gov.uk/covidbusinesssupport


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After largely eschewing the wave of price cuts that have swept through the cellphone service business, Verizon Wireless appears poised to announce a new set of cheaper rate plans on Thursday.
According to a data sheet on the new plans leaked to Android Police, Verizon will be increasing the amount of data for Share Everything customers and cutting monthly costs by $10 to $20 for those who finance their device using a Verizon Edge program rather than opting for a subsidized phone.
The company is teasing tomorrow’s moves, but declined to comment on the specifics.
Verizon is also closing five customer call centers, including locations in Cranberry Woods, Pa., and Meriden, Conn. The company will also close part of its call center operations in Irvine, Calif.; Warrendale, Pa.; and Folsom, Calif. In all, the move will affect about 3,000 workers, who will have the option of relocating or taking a severance package. An additional 2,200 workers will be reassigned to similar positions within driving distance of their current office, Verizon said. The closings are set to take place in May, a Verizon spokesman told Re/code.
The moves come amid growing price pressure in the industry, an effort largely kicked off last year when No. 4 U.S. carrier T-Mobile moved to do away with phone subsidies and simultaneously cut service plan prices. T-Mobile also introduced an early upgrade program.
AT&T and Verizon responded with various early upgrade programs but have been reluctant to cut prices. AT&T, though, announced earlier this month that it was cutting prices on some family plans. Analysts had been speculating that Verizon would not be able to hold out much longer without some sort of price move.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.


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Microsoft Sales Chief: 'Facts' Show that Windows Trumps LinuxBy Channel Insider Staff | Print
Desktop-as-a-Service Designed for Any Cloud ? Nutanix Frame
Touting 16 third-party analysesmany of them sponsored by MicrosoftKevin Johnson says the company plans to continue unearthing evidence to help it combat Linux in the coming fiscal year.REDMOND, Wash.Microsoft's war on Linux isn't about to let up.
The Redmond software vendor plans to step up its "Get the Facts" anti-open-source campaign in the coming year by adding more evidence, in the form of customer case studies and analyst reports, to its arsenal.
That's what Kevin Johnson, Microsoft's group vice president of worldwide sales, marketing and services, told about 300 analysts and members of the media attending Microsoft's annual financial analyst meeting here Thursday.
He said the data shows that on the server, Windows and Linux are grabbing market share from Unix and Novell NetWare, rather than from each other. And citing Gartner Group numbers, Johnson said Windows maintained its 96 percent PC desktop market share, compared with Linux with 1.4 percent and the Mac OS with 2.2 percent.
Johnson said Microsoft has a good story to tell when selling against open source on a variety of fronts, including TCO (total cost of ownership), interoperability, security, developer productivity and customer indemnification.
"There's perceived TCO [advantage] on Linux, but that perception is not reality," Johnson claimed.
Johnson cited the collection of 16 third-party analyses conducted over the past year that Microsoft is touting on its "Get the Facts" Web site as evidence upon which customers are relying in evaluating Linux versus Windows.
He said Microsoft has documented the experiences of 75 customers who have either evaluated or used Linux and have opted for Windows instead. In total, Microsoft has a "pipeline" of 200 or more referenceable customers who are willing to talk about their Windows versus Linux evaluation experiences, he said.
Microsoft's Get the Facts campaign hasn't been without controversy, however. A number of industry watchers have noted that
And just this week at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, one keynoter said vendor lock-in is more of a customer decision maker/breaker in Windows versus Linux evaluations than is TCO.


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Mr Pesky wrote:The price of new cars (however excellent they may be) are too high for the markets in which they are pitched. Until that aspect is addressed, it will be a continuing downward spiral into obllivium..As Podger points out, paying Creditors 155 days late is totally unacceptable, so very careful, cast iron guaranteed negotiation with them will be a prerequisite for future survival.
Keep in touch with fellow enthusiasts.
I don’t know if the global market sees the prices as being too high, I suspect Lotus charge what they think the market will pay. When I was at the factory last year I was told by the tour guide that production was running more or less at full capacity and that every car that came off the line was already sold, with eight out of ten cars going abroad. I suspect that until those markets are pretty much saturated there wouldn’t be a need to review their price structure. Yes they could reduce the cost and they would probably sell more cars in the UK, but why would they do that if they can already sell everything that they can produce.